


feelings for something lost

by your_bespoke_psychopath



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, this is not the library fix-it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_bespoke_psychopath/pseuds/your_bespoke_psychopath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He promised her that he won't re-write their story. It seemed that she forgot about rule #1.<br/>The Doctor lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feelings for something lost

**Author's Note:**

> uhm. yeah. the idea for this started well over a year ago and resulted in a fanmix with little ficlets. I posted it and kind of forgot about it.  
> but then, The Spoiler About River hit the fandom world and well, the idea returned. and I caught myself thinking: 'shit, should I re-write it and properly post it before the finale comes and bites me on the ass?'. and I did. and while it is triggered by The Big River Finale Spoiler, it is not spoiler-y itself. and I really, really need to post it before the finale is here. because of the potential plot developments, but also because otherwise, my mind would bug me forever. there.  
> title of the fic, as well as all the subtitles, come from an album 'feelings for something lost' by Library Tapes. and you should check the band and the album out, because all the scores are titled in such a way, that their titles read one after another, create a poem. nifty, if you as me.

**I. but now things were different, with birds unable to speak**

He has always thought that he has more time. That they have more time. He’s hoped that it was the case. He was wrong.

Per usual.

There were these little signs that he ignored or deliberately chose to ignore: the fact that she’s pardoned, the fact that she’s a professor. The fact that his screwdriver suddenly happened to have red settings. The fact that she’s been asked on many expeditions as a specialist and expert. He ignored all of it, thinking that he can always run: run with her, towards new adventures and away from her future.

But time waits for no one. Not even for him.

He realises this one day, after a particularly tiring adventure involving the Middle Ages, a possessed monk and a herd of really annoying cows. When they retreat to the TARDIS, wet from holy water and slightly burnt from holy fire, River goes straight to the console and starts fiddling with the settings. Which is Just Not Good, because no matter how many times she repeats that, she just doesn’t fly the TARDIS better. She leaves out all the cool things like shaking and the brilliant noise. And the fact that she always arrives where she wants to arrive means nothing. It’s just TARDIS playing favourites. Which is really not fair, because if anything, _he_ should be her favourite.

‘River,’ he starts patiently, running fingers through his hair, trying to get mud out of it. ‘It’s really great that you want to leave this godforsaken place as soon as possible, but it is my ship. And I should be the one doing the flying thing. Just because you believe you fly her better, doesn’t mean you do, you know!’

This is what someone might call A Bad Idea. When will he learn that sometimes it’s better to think before he speaks?

‘Sweetie,’ River says in a deceptively calm voice that just means she’s about to strangle him with his own bow tie. Or use that gun still strapped to her thigh to shoot his hat off. And since he doesn’t have a hat on at the moment, she may go for the closest thing: his head. ‘First: you are the one who told the monks that a person cannot be possessed by evil spirits and that praying won’t cure anything. Second – no, let me finish – you decided to whip out your sonic and flash it in front of the monks, which resulted in them calling us the evil spirits. And that in turn resulted in us being nearly drowned in holy water. Oh, wait, I think I’m forgetting something...’ River looks thoughtful as if trying to remember some minor detail. ‘Oh right. Then when we did not drown and did not show our real demon faces, they decided to burn us at the stake.’

‘River!’ he whines, because it’s not fair. Okay, he might’ve taken out the screwdriver to scan one of the monks and he might have showed off a bit by lighting the candles with it, but River was no better. ‘River! You are the one who called them uneducated idiots. Not to mention that you wore this-this thing with, with...,’ he ends or rather does not end the sentence under River’s heavy gaze. He is really glad that look can’t kill, because he is pretty sure that he’d be already dead. And this time River would most definitely leave him so.

‘Third,’ she continues like she did not hear him talk. Which is probably for the best, it means he still has a chance of staying alive. ‘My clothes are ruined. That was the first time I wore that dress,’ she points to the scraps of fabric still clinging to her body, ‘and now look at it. And do I need to remind you what happened to my shoes? They ended up in a lavatory. A Middle Ages lavatory.’

‘That one is your own fault! Who wears heels for an adventure?’

‘We were supposed to go dancing, you idiot!’ she hisses. Oh. Right. She may be right here. ‘The question is, who doesn’t wear heels for a dancing date? And maybe if you’d let me fly her, we wouldn’t be stinking of burnt clothes and other things right now.’

‘Oh, but taking a gun to a dancing date is normal?’ he grumbles under his breath, as quietly as he can, but River hears it. She shoots him another angry look that makes him swallow nervously. Okay, so he made his wife angry. His Human+ wife, raised and trained to kill him. His wife who is still incredibly apt with a gun. Or actually, who is very apt with any device or thing that could be used as a weapon to kill him dead in 0.003 second.

This. Is. Very. Not. Good.

‘Besides,’ River says slightly amused, stopping his thoughts of possible escape routes. ‘we’re already in the vortex. I’ve put us there minutes ago. And right now, I am checking my emails if you have to know.’

Checking her what?

‘Checking your emails?!’ he shrieks. ‘You cannot do something like that here! We are in space, you don’t have internet here! Plus, TARDIS interface wouldn’t allow anyone to use wifi here. I know, because I tried to do it and the Old Girl just won’t have it.’

‘That’s funny, because I asked her and she had no problems with downloading and displaying all the emails from my account,’ River smiles smugly. ‘And maybe she just didn’t want you to buy more ugly hats on amazon.’

‘I was not looking for hats!’ he splutters and River just nods her head as if saying ‘of course you weren’t, sweetie’. She is so annoying and she has bewitched his ship and he doesn’t stand a chance against these two. ‘Oh, I hate you,’ he mutters.

‘No you don’t,’ she says and winks. ‘Now hush. I’m reading.’

‘But River! You cannot just ask her to download your emails! She’s not an iPad! What’s next? You’ll buy a bike and spend your days at Intergalactic Starbucks? Ha?!’

‘Honey,’ River says with a patient sigh that he hears way too often from her. ‘Do I have to remind you that you were the one who took us one to the planet of thrift shops and refused to leave for two days? Or that until recently you wore a tweed jacket?’

‘That jacket was cool! And do _I_ need to remind _you_ , wife,’ he says, lowering his voice, ‘that you also wore that jacket a few times?’

‘No, you do not need to remind me that. The difference is that I looked really good in it,’ she replies and her lips curl in a naughty grin. ‘And I also did not wear anything underneath. Now hush. I’m reading.’

Feeling suddenly warm and flustered – because she _did_ look much better wearing his tweed jacket, he has to admit it and maybe if he lets her read that blasted messages, she’ll agree to wear that jacket again. She will want to change from her ruined clothes, right? And she cannot just walk around undressed, she could catch a cold. And his old jacket should keep her perfectly warm. A self-satisfied sigh stops his wandering thoughts and he looks up to see River beaming at something displayed at the monitor.

‘It’s just brilliant,’ she says happily and answers his questioning look. ‘I’ve been accepted as a specialist for two expeditions. Now I only have to decide on one of them, because they’re roughly at the same time,’ he hums distractedly, trying to remember where he put the tweed. Is it in the wardrobe in their bedroom? Or is it in under the console? He needs to find it, now. Surely, River is done with all the email nonsense and they can engage themselves in more interesting activities. Oh wait, she’s still talking.

‘The first one is to the pyramids of Yenna. They were built 3 billion years ago for Yenna, the goddess of Venger. They’re upside down, everything in them is turned around. Not to mention that everything inside and outside is built from obsidian, but not from the one you can find on Earth – it’s the Venger obsidian. It absorbs light, at least light visible to human eyes,’ River’s voice is bubbling with happiness and he cannot take his eyes of her, because she’s absolutely radiant in her excitement.

‘And I’d be the leader of the expedition, which means that I would be the one to write the paper on the pyramids. Thousands of people dream about it. And the second one... Well, it’s definitely less grand, but...’ she hesitates and a strange feeling of dread fills his hearts. ‘The second one is an expedition to The Library. The planet, not the place,’ she smiles at him and he responds with a smile of his own, but while hers is bright and sincere, his feels fake and forced. ‘The place has been sealed off for ages. Something had happened there years ago and that caused the whole place to close off. No life signs coming from there, even though there had been people at the time of the seal off. And I don’t know,’ she bites her lips and shrugs. ‘I have no idea which one should I choose.’

This was not supposed to happen now.

It’s too... sudden. They were supposed to have more time, weren’t they? It is not her time, not yet.

But even as he says all these things in his head, he knows he’s lying to himself. He has been lying to himself for years now. Her time has come to an end and he cannot stop it from happening.

‘Both sound pretty rubbish if you ask me,’ he manages to say through his gritted teeth. ‘But that’s archaeology for you,’ her offended gasp doesn’t make him smile this time. ‘When do you have to decide?’

‘I still have some time,’ she replies. ‘Enough time for a dance date.’

He forces a grin on his lips.

‘Well then, professor Song,’ he says and the words taste bitter on his tongue. ‘Dance date it is. But I think that you should first take off these dress. I believe I still have the tweed jacket somewhere...’

Her warm laugh follows him under the console where he goes to look for the lost jacket. With every step he takes, her laugh is a bit quieter in his ears.

With every step, she’s a bit farther away.

 

**II.**

As soon as he leaves her at her house – a lovely and spacious cottage with a small garden at the back – he starts running.

He runs away from her. He runs away from her future and the part of it that he will be forced to play. Because as long as he doesn’t take her to see The Singing Towers, she cannot go to The Library, right?

It’s a foolproof plan.

And it works brilliantly: he runs through the universe, saves the planets and watches the stars, and he tries not to think that somewhere there, River is agreeing to go to The Library. He tries not to think that somewhere there she’s dying - she’s already dead - she will die.

He fails.

The thought is always in his head, tucked neatly in the dark parts of his brain, pressed upon his hearts.

He runs farther away, hoping to lose it somewhere along the way.

He runs to postpone her death. He runs to save her.

It works just fine, until it doesn’t.

He loses his screwdriver. It falls into a volcano on Starchia, when he’s fighting with a lava monster that emerged from there. He defeats the monster – of course he does, he mourns his screwdriver and tries to get it out of the red hot lava, but it’s impossible. But the good and reliable Sexy has another screwdriver ready for him the second he enters the TARDIS. He’s grinning like a child on Christmas when the new sonic raises up from the hole in the console. But his grin dies as soon as he sees it: it’s her screwdriver. It’s the screwdriver he gave – will give – her, before he sent – will send - her to The Library.

He grips it in his hand, so tightly the metal almost cuts through his skin.

It’s still too early, he thinks.

 

**III.**

He runs faster than ever before.

 

**IV.**

One day he walks into his bedroom and there’s a new suit on his bed.

And he knows: it’s time to stop running.

 

**V. leaves abstract in a village plunged into mourning**

He goes to visit River. For her, it’s been only a month since she saw him last. For him – it’s been far longer.

Everything happens just like she’d said it would: the Towers sing. He cries.

He holds her close, never letting her out of his embrace.

(There are also these words, at the tip of his tongue, words that he’s been waiting to say for such a long time. He wants to say them now, to let her know that- . But they sit stubbornly in his mouth, choking him, leaving him breathless. Instead of saying them, he kisses her and hopes she’ll understand.)

He takes her back home and for the first – last – time, he stays with her, holding her all through the night, until the sun comes up.

He stares at the blood red morning and it hits him how old he feels.

How old he is. And how very lonely.

He’s also a very selfish man, probably the most selfish man in the universe. So when he sneaks out of her bed - quietly, like the thief and trickster he is - and sees that his bowtie is wrapped around her hand, he decides that the universe owes him this much. He slides back under her covers, lies next to her and hopes that just this once, time can be re-written.

 

**VI. it was a cold day in february and we walked across the lake**

When she wakes up, he asks her to travel with him.

‘Just for a while,’ he says. She laughs at him, thinking he’s joking, but she sobers up when she sees just how _serious_ he is. She declines – bringing up all the arguments he knows so well, the arguments he used all the time, the rules he put between them – but he begs and pleads until she agrees.

‘Just for a while,’ she nods, and he hopes that they’ll be able to make it last forever.

 

**VII.**

(He sends a message to his younger, Converse-wearing self to stay far away from The Library. Another message goes to his older, but still younger self.

_'Follow 'hello sweetie', always catch River Song and trust her'_.)

 

**VIII.**

He promised her that he won't re-write their story. It seemed that she forgot about rule #1.

_The Doctor lies._

 

**IX.**

For the first time in forever, they have time to actually _be_ together. Oh, they still get into trouble and sticky situations (him), use guns way too often (River) and run a lot (both). But they also find time for a cup of coffee and a lazy, adventure-free afternoons. He doesn’t think he has ever felt more content. The normalcy of their situation does not bore him – it excites him.

He rediscovers River and learns her from the beginning: he finds out how much sugar she takes in her tea (1 spoon) and how she likes her coffee (white, no sugar). He lets her drag him shopping and he endures endless hours in various guns shops. Sometimes _he_ has to drag her away from there and push her toward his favourite section in the whole mall: the lingerie store. She rolls her eyes at him, but lets him come with her into the cubicle and she lets him decide which slinky number he’d most like to take off of her later.

He discovers that she’s even worse at cooking than he is, but that she’s an absolute pro when it comes to baking (there’s this one time, when they eat chocolate cake for a week. For every meal). He learns that she likes to read before she sleeps and if the book really engages her, she won’t put it down until she finishes it. He takes her to the greatest archaeological digs in the history and uses his psychic paper to get them both on the expeditions (he always ends up insulting everyone around him. She pretends she doesn’t know him).

Everything is fine.

Nothing happens.

He thinks - hopes - that it's the universe's way of saying 'You deserve this, mate'.

 

**X.**

Nothing lasts forever.

She notices the fluke first. They're on this tiny planet that is made entirely of rubies. Everything in here shines blood red – the trees, the sun, clouds on the red sky - and to be honest, it looks a little spooky. But River loves it here and she looks so happy that he cannot bring himself to ask her to go somewhere else.

Suddenly he sees her waving at him and calling him to come to her, pointing at something that lies near her feet. The second he sees it, he knows that this is not good. River says aloud everything that is running through his head: 'this shouldn't be here yet, it's too early, it shouldn't even exist yet, it has not been invented and...'. He pretends to dismiss her talk with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he grabs her hand and drags her away from there.

‘These things happen,’ he says. ‘I bet one of your archaeological friends was here some time ago and left one of his toys behind. And this is why you should never trust archaeologists!’ he end, bopping her nose. She raises her eyebrow in disbelief, but says nothing.

He takes them as far away from there as he can.

 

**XI.**

It happens again.

And again.

He either shrugs it off or manages to divert River’s attention from the flukes.

But he knows she’s not stupid. Sooner rather than later she’ll catch up and he’ll have to tell her.

 

**XII.**

Next time, he cannot hide it.

‘Anj-yria!’ he exclaims, running to open the door. ‘The planet with the biggest tropical forest in the universe! Picture the Amazon Forest... Can you see it? Okay, forget it, Anj-yria is nothing like it. It’s much bigger. And much more... majestic. And hell on the hair, so sorry about that,’ he adds quickly and opens the door with flourish.

When he sees what is waiting for them outside, he double checks. Because-

The planet before them is barren. It doesn’t resemble the luscious green forest he described in the slightest. The sky high trees are lying on the dry ground, broken and lifeless. This place has been always bursting with life and noise: screeching of birds, wind rustling through the leaves, calls of various animals. Now it’s eerily quiet. There are corpses of animals everywhere, the sweet smell of death and decomposition chokes them. But there’s also something else in the air, he can feel it, he can taste it in the air he breaths: time is dying. It’s cracking and shifting, breaking apart and putrefying. He can feel the time lines spinning madly, out of control, straight toward a disastrous collision.

But the damage is already done. It’s done here, it’s done in all the places they’ve been. Who knows what happens – happened – will happen – somewhere else.

He needs to get out of here, he needs to figure out a way out of it, he needs to save the universe and-

‘Doctor?’ River starts, unsure what to make out of the landscape before her. ‘What happened? Are we too late? Or too early? What caused this?’

You caused this, he thinks. I caused this. We caused this.

‘I don’t know.’

_Liar._

‘Let’s just go back to the TARDIS,’ he replies and squeezes her hand gently. ‘I... There’s something I need to tell you.’

 

**XIII. (...the shame of it all...)**

He tells her everything.

About The Library. About his first meeting with her. About what she sacrificed for him. And that he cannot let her die, not now.

Not ever.

 

**XIV.**

\- Is it happening because you saved me? Because you re-wrote time?

\- Yes. No. Maybe. But you never know, these things happen all the time and-

\- _Doctor_.

\- Yes.

 

**XV.**

\- You shouldn’t have done that.

\- What was I supposed to do? Let you die?

\- That’s what was supposed to happen!

\- But I changed it! I re-wrote it! It is done!

\- Why?

\- What ‘why’?

\- Why did you change it? You knew it’d come with consequences. Why did you do that?

\- I couldn’t let you die. I couldn’t. Not again. I couldn’t let you go without...

\- Without what, Doctor?

(The images are flashing in his head: the dry smell of sand, the pyramid, the wedding that never was, her words: ‘you are loved by so many, and by no one more than me’. He wishes he could repeat these words, say them back, but they are stuck in his throat, suffocating him.)

 

**XVI. shut your eyes and you'll find the trees turning into flames**

\- And what will happen now?

\- I don't know.

\- Will it get worse? Will there be more consequences? Will-

\- I don't know.

\- Do you regret it? Saving me?

\- How could I?

 

**XVII.**

They run away. Away from responsibility and the consequences they have to face, away from the damaged they caused.

The universe is vast and they don't look back.

Together, they escape.

 

**XVIII. (burning saints for your own sins)**

The stars are going out. The planets are disappearing. There is pain and suffering, screaming for help and mercy.

Wherever they go, the death follows them. Wherever they appear, they bring destruction and end. They paint the universe crimson red, they crush and burn, they destroy everything around them.

No one is there to save the day.

(River was right: _one psychopath per TARDIS_.

They are ruinous together.)

 

**XIX.**

They are so tired of running.

But there’s nothing else they can do: they have to run even father.

(They never let go of each other.)

 

**XX.** **when we no longer are around to write our love on each others’ eyelids**

He always knew that she is the stronger one.

They're in the TARDIS - the only peaceful place right now. The only place free of the mess they've made. The only place where they can forget what they've caused.

He's fiddling with the stabilisers (they're boring and blue, and who needs them?), while River is walking around the console, her heels clicking quietly in the empty room. She’s been quiet lately, a bit withdrawn. He knows that everything that is happening is taking its toll on her. It’s taking its toll of him.

He can _feel_ the damage done to the worlds. He feels it like the blows are delivered to his own body. He hears the screams and shouts, full of misery and pain. And he knows that she does as well – even though she tries to hide it from him, protecting him even now.

River is standing behind him now, her head resting on his shoulder, her arms wrapped around him. Her hair is tickling his cheek lightly, her fingers are playing with the buttons of his waistcoat. She’s warm and soft, she smells like stardust – and she’s so alive.

‘Husband,’ she whispers, voice husky and sending warmth down his spine, ‘I have a request.’

She kisses him – she tastes like regret and sadness, she tastes like goodbye - and before he has a chance to respond to it, he feels lightheaded and dizzy. His hearts are pounding madly in his chest, the room starts spinning around and he feels like the ceiling will fall on him any second now. He licks his lips again – the chemicals from her lipstick burst on his tongue, sending him deeper into the darkness.

The last thing he hears before he collapses on the cold floor, are her whispered words.

_‘I’m sorry, my love.’_

 

**XXI.** **it** **ends with a version of keeping, reminding about what once were**

When he wakes up, his head is pounding, the pain nearly splitting it open. The TARDIS is drifting safely in the vortex and River is nowhere to be found.

But he knows where she is. She went to The Library, to repair what he messed up. He wants to go there, to stop her, to drag her back in here, to keep her here forever.

To keep her with him: where she belongs.

But a sudden wave of pain hits him, making him groan in agony. She’s doing it – she did it, she healed the time, she nursed the damaged he’d caused. He feels that all the cracks are gone, he can feel the universe being right again.

There’s more: he feels his memories being changed and re-written. Their stolen time together never happened now, each day is erased, one after another. But he also remembers that these things did happen, he has these memories in the back of his mind.

He clings to them.

(‘Doctor, I just baked 42 jammie dodgers, do not tell me you ate them all!’; ‘That is the 5th of my hats you shot! This week!’; ‘River, did you really just steal that priceless diamond necklace just because it’d look nicely on you?’, ‘Doctor, if you don’t stop blasting that song, I will murder you. I don’t care it’s called ‘Thrift shop, it’s awful!’, ‘Uhm, so it’d seem that we got married? Again?’, ‘Can you please stop putting things into my hair, Doctor? It is not funny!’, ‘River... This is my tea.’, ‘No, you cannot adopt a chicken. I don’t care that you already named him.’)

He savours them.

(The taste of her skin, the colour of her eyes, how she smiled at him in the evenings and how she scowled at him in the mornings when he woke her up, how she always hogged all the covers, the colour of his favourite lipstick, the sound her dresses made falling on the floor when he took them off, the freckles that appeared on her nose if she spent too much time on sun.)

He remembers what he - they - lost.

He will always remember it.

And that’s all what he has left: memories of something that never happened.

Feelings for something lost.


End file.
